John Schabron visits the grave of his son, Nick, at Green Hill Cemetery in Laramie. Nick Schabron and seven other members of the University of Wyoming cross-country team were killed in 2001 on a stretch of U.S. 287 that the state is now planning to widen.

The state of Wyoming will soon start fixing the highway where his son and seven other members of the University of Wyoming cross-country team were killed six years ago.

For that, the soft-spoken analytical chemist is grateful. But so much more needs to be done, he said, to improve U.S. 287 from Laramie to the Colorado line – considered one of the most dangerous roads in the country – as well as the stretch that winds its way to Fort Collins.

“I just wish it could be handled with a little more sense of urgency,” Schabron said. “I just do not want to lose any more kids, or anyone else, on this road.”

Wyoming officials said last week that they want to add two lanes to 287 to create a divided four-lane highway from mile post 405 to the state line. Construction could begin as early as February, pending funding and the success of the bidding process, said Wyoming Department of Transportation spokesman Bruce Burrows.

“The fact is, this is a high priority for us,” Burrows said.

It is not, however, for Colorado. There are no plans to widen the Larimer County portion of 287, which does not rack up an unusual number of accidents, said Colorado Department of Transportation spokeswoman Stacey Stegman.

“The cost would be extreme since that portion of 287 is mountainous,” Stegman said. “If we were going to address safety issues, we’d consider signals or new turn lanes.

“But as far as crash numbers overall,” she said. “It’s not that so out-of-line with other similar highways.”

For more than a decade, Schabron has lobbied Wyoming and Colorado officials to widen 287 from Laramie to Fort Collins.

“I just saw too many of my friends and acquaintances suffer because of this highway,” he said.

Then, on Sept. 16, 2001, his campaign got personal. His 20-year-old son, Nick Schab- ron, and his cross-county teammates were killed south of Laramie when a vehicle driven by Clint Haskins, another University of Wyoming student, crossed the center line on 287 and collided with the Jeep Wagoneer that Nick was driving.

Haskins, who was legally drunk at the time of the crash, is serving a 14- to 20-year sentence after pleading guilty to eight counts of aggravated vehicular homicide.

Schabron said that if the road had been wider, the crash might have been avoided.

“A lot of the parents of the victims channeled their energy into something, and I kind of made this my focus,” he said.

The first phase of the construction will be a roughly 4- mile stretch between Tie Siding and mile post 419.7, near the spot of the Schabron crash.

There is no cost estimate to the project, which will depend on stable funding from the state, Burrows said.

“We just can’t knock out a 20-mile project in the next three or four years,” he said. “This will take time.”

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